A study on the entailment of meronymy in 10 year old vietnamese children’s english speaking a case of the children in an english centre

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES
AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

-----***----TRẦN LAN HƯƠNG

A STUDY ON THE ENTAILMENT OF MERONYMY IN 10-YEAR-OLD
VIETNAMESE CHILDREN’S ENGLISH SPEAKING: A CASE OF THE
CHILDREN IN AN ENGLISH CENTRE
(NGHIÊN CỨU SỰ KÉO THEO CỦA QUAN HỆ BỘ PHẬN- TOÀN
PHẦN TRONG CÁCH NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA TRẺ EM VIỆT NAM 10
TUỔI: NGHIÊN CỨU TRÊN ĐỐI TƯỢNG HỌC SINH CỦA MỘT
TRUNG TÂM TIẾNG ANH)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English
Code: 6014.0111
Supervisor: Dr. Do Thi Thanh Ha

HANOI, 2015


CERTIFICATION OF ORIGINALITY
I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “A study on the entailment of meronymy
in 10 year-old Vietnamese children’s English speaking. A case of the children in an
English centre” is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree
of Master at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and
International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

Hanoi, 2015

Tran Lan Huong

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
At the end of my thesis, I would like to express my deep gratitude to all people
who have helped and inspired me to finish the graduation paper.
First, I would like to express my especial thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Do Thi
Thanh Ha for her invaluable guidance. Her expertise, understanding, and patience,
added considerably to my research experience.
I also wish to thank the manager, the students and teachers at Amslink Centre,
whose knowledge, experience, and supports directed me through my study.
A very special thank goes out to my friends, without whose support,
motivation and encouragement I would not have such patience and determination in
fulfilling this study. I would also like to thank my family for the support they
provided me through my entire life and especially this hard time of preparation for
graduation.

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ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the entailment of meronymy in 10 year-old Vietnamese
children’s English speaking. The data was taken from the observation of 33
Vietnamese students at the age of ten and 3 native teachers.
The results show two types of the entailment of meronymy in children’s
English speaking: the first is breaking the constant principle in the semantic relation
of meronymy and the second is the lack of one of properties of meronymy. The first
one is more popular to cause the entailment of meronymy.

Moreover, the study also indicates how teachers responded to children’s
entailments of meronymy and goes to the conclusion that most of time teachers
ignored these or sometimes just gave very simple feedback when what children said
was too unreasonable.

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TABLE OF CONTENT
CERTIFICATION OF ORIGINALITY ...............................................................
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.....................................................................................
ABSTRACT..........................................................................................................
LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................
PART A. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................
1.

Statement of the problem and rationale for the study ...........................................

2.

Research questions ..............................................................................................

3.

Scope of the research ...........................................................................................

4.

Organization of the thesis ....................................................................................

PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW..............................................................
I. MERONYMY ....................................................................................................
1.

Definition of meronymy ......................................................................................

2.

Characteristics of meronymy ...............................................................................

3.

2.1

The constant principle in the semantic relation of Me

2.2

Properties of Meronymy .............................................

Types ...................................................................................................................
3.1

Component – integral .................................................

3.2

Member – collection ...................................................

3.3

Portion- Mass .............................................................

3.4

Stuff- Object ...............................................................

3.5

Feature- Activity .........................................................

3.6 Place- Area ..................................................................................................
II. CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION..........................................................
1.

Language acquisition .........................................................................................

2.

Teachers’ oral feedback in speaking ..................................................................
2.1

The definitions of feedback ........................................

2.2

Types of feedback .......................................................

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III. RELATED STUDIES.......................................................................................................... 18
1. Meronymy……………………………………………………………………
2. Children language acquisition…………………………………………………..
CHAPTER II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY................................................................. 23
I. THE CONTEXT OF THE STUDY.................................................................................... 23
1. Teaching methodology.......................................................................................................... 23
2 The students’ learning conditions......................................................................................... 23
II. PARTICIPANTS..................................................................................................................... 24
III. METHODOLOGY............................................................................................................... 25
1. Instrument................................................................................................................................. 25
2. Data analysis methods........................................................................................................... 26
CHAPTER III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION................................................................. 28
I. THE FREQUENCYOF ENTAILMENT OF MERONYMY........................................ 29
1. The constant principle in the semantic relation of meronymy..................................... 29
1.1 The combination of more than one type of meronymy.......................................... 29
1.2 Non-meronymic relations.............................................................................................. 33
1.2.1 Attribution.............................................................................................................. 33
1.2.2 Topological inclusion.......................................................................................... 34
1.2.3 Possession/ Ownership........................................................................................ 35
2. The lack of properties of meronymy- Motivation........................................................... 36
II. TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK.................................................................................................. 38
1. The frequency of teachers’ feedback to entailment of meronymy.............................. 38
2. Types of feedback................................................................................................................... 39
PART C. CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................... 42
1. Recapitulation.......................................................................................................................... 42
2. Limitation................................................................................................................................. 43
3. Suggestion for further study................................................................................................. 43
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................ 45

APPENDIX 1 OBSERVATION DATA.................................................................................. 48

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APPENDIX 2 STUDENTS’ LEARNING CONDITION AT AMSLINK
CENTRE

vi

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LIST OF TABLES
1. Table 1: Six types of meronymic relation with relation elements …….....8
LIST OF FIGURES
1. Figure 1: Feedback Types classified by Brookhart (1998)…………… 16
2. Figure 2: Feedback Types classified by Crane (2006) ……………….. 17
3. Figure 3: The frequency of entailment of meronymy ……… 26
4. Figure 4: The teachers’ reaction to the students’ use …………… 36
LIST OF PICTURES
1. Picture 1: Classroom’s view …………………………………………. .50
2. Picture 2: Classroom’s equipments ………………………………….. 50

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PART A. INTRODUCTION 1.
Statement of the problem and rationale for the study
Linguistics, the scientific study of language, is of all “the social sciences with

the greatest interest in the phenomenon of meaning” (Lyons, 1981: 15). There have
been different approaches to investigate meaning and the lexical approach is one of
them. When the meaning of a lexical item is stated through associations with other
lexical items, the theory of lexical semantics is met. This approach posits two
different, though connected, aspects. One aspect relates the linguistic element to the
physical world of experience, the world of objects, entities, which is called reference.
While the other aspect, namely sense, relates to the relations holding between the
linguistic elements themselves, particularly, sense or lexical relations.
Sense relations among words have captured the interest of various brands of
philosophers, cognitive psychologists, linguists, early childhood and second language
educators,

computer

scientists,

literary

theorists,

cognitive

neuroscientists,

psychoanalysts- investigators from just about any field whose interests involve
words, meaning or the mind. We can access a broad and detailed literature that
approaches the topic from a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives.
Still, the core semantic relation of every knowledge organization system is hierarchy.
There are two kinds of hierarchic relations that should be distinguished: hyponymy
(is-a relation) and meronymy (part-of relation).

In the way meronymy is currently applied in real life, especially by children,
different kinds of meronymy are sometimes misleadingly summed up into one
general part-whole relation and regarded as always transitive, which can make some
types of entailments. However, children are not often given a clear explanation about
their entailment. Moreover, there is no recent study on the entailment of meronymy in
children’s English speaking; therefore; the analysis of these in general and in the
context of Vietnam in particular is really necessary. This study is a theoretical
approach to some knowledge of meronymy in general and the

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transitivity of meronymy in particular to clarify some entailment of meronymy
concerning transitivity of Vietnamese children.
2. Research questions
The study’s primary aim is to investigate the use of meronymy in English
communication classes of 10-year-old students. And then the researcher will try to
analyze the entailment of meronymy in Vietnamese children’s English speaking and
investigate how teachers responded to children’s use of meronymy.
This final goal is specified in the following research questions:
1. What are the entailment of meronymy in Vietnamese 10-year-old
children’s English speaking?
2. How do teachers respond to students’ entailment of meronymy?
3. Scope of the research
Due to the limited time and knowledge, it will be not wise to cover all aspects
of meronymy like its relationship with other semantic relations, the benefits of
transitive meronymy for the application of automatic semantic query expansion in
information retrieval tasks, weighted meronymic relations, application fields in detail,
etc. Moreover, it is also impossible to discuss all the entailment of meronymy in
children’s English speaking. Conversely, my study just emphasizes on one aspect of

meronymy- transitivity and some outstanding use related to this aspect of meronymy
of 10- year- old children.
4. Organization of the thesis
The thesis consists of three parts:
Part A – Introduction comes to the general introduction including the
rational, and the purposes of the present study.
Part B – Development: this part comprises of three chapters:
Chapter 1: Theoretical Background and Literature review covers the
overview of the literature in which relevant theoretical background and reviews
of related studies concerning meronymy. It reviews the research

2


background and discusses the characteristics of meronymy, and then the
transitivity of meronymy.
Chapter 2 – Research Method continues with the research method including
the participants of the study, the instrument, the methods and procedures of
data collection and data analysis.
Chapter 3 – Findings and Discussion demonstrates the findings accompanied
by data analysis and discussion.
Part C – Conclusion recapitulates the major findings of the study and then it
discusses the limitations of the present study and puts forward some suggestions for
the further study on meronymy.

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PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW

I. MERONYMY
An interesting and crucial type of semantic relation, expressed in language,
“is the relation between the parts of things and the wholes which they comprise”
(Winston et al. 1987:417). This semantic relation has been lexicalized in many
languages and can be used appropriately in some contexts and not in others (Chaffin
1992:255). Moreover, meronymy or part-whole relations turn out not to be simple,
probably because there is no single meronymic relation but there are several different
ones and each having their own semantic properties instead.
The nature of meronymy has been, and still, particularly controversial.
Sometimes it is treated as fundamental, sometimes it is treated as a complex relation
derived from other relations, and sometimes ignores altogether. The present chapter is
an attempt to present a complete picture, as much as possible, of meronymy in
English by adopting the appropriate model that best explicates its nature, more
specifically the transitive nature of meronymy.
1. Definition of meronymy
In terms of etymology, the term meronymy stems from the Greek “mero”
which means “part” (The Oxford University Dictionary Illustrated, 1968: 1237). The
term meronymy is not part of the available traditional resources of semanticist.
Perhaps this term was first used by Miller and Johnson- Laird (1976:242) while
Winston et al (1987) recommended another term “partonymy”. Although it can be
named in different ways, the definition of meronymy is not new and it has long been
regarded as one of the constitutive principles in the organization of the vocabulary of
all languages.
Meronymy is also defined as a structural sense/ semantic relation holding
between lexical items denoting parts (meronyms) and that denoting their
corresponding wholes (holonyms). Many linguistics supported this mentioned

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notion of meronymy such as Lyons (1977: 311-314), Eikmeyer& Reiser (1981:
134), Halliday (1985: 312), Grains & Redman (1986:29), Sa’eed (1997:70), Kearns
(2000:131-133), Finch (2000: 169), Murphy (2003: 218). Cruse (1979, 1986, 2000)
also defended the same conception “(X) is a meronymy of (Y) if and only if sentences
of the form A (Y) has (X)s/ an (X) and An (X) is a part of (Y) are normal when the
noun phrases interpreted generically”. However, with this definition, Cruse digged
up deeply extracting test-frames to pin down a cohesive core group of relations
comprising an ideal, or central meronymic relation which is too restricted. The twopart test leaks two different frames. The first one relates to irrelevant pairs while the
other excludes relevant ones. This contrast is compromised by the solution offered by
Cruse in the following frame: “The parts of a (Y) includes the (X)/(X)s, the (Z)/
(Z)s…”
As for Winston et all (1987), they demonstrated that it can express meronym
relations using the word part or its derivation, including any of the following testframes: (X) is a part of (Y), (Y) is partly (X), (X)s are parts of (Y)s, and so on.
Croft & Cruse (2004) took the “construal and constraints” approach in which
meronymy is regarded as a relation between contextually construed meanings or
more precisely, by pre-meanings created by boundary construal. This approach
presents the following characterization of meronymy, “ If A is a meronym of B in a
particular context then any member of the extension of A either maps onto a specific
member of the extension of B of which it is construed as a part, or it stands
potentially in a intrinsically construed relation of part to some actual or potential
member of B” (Croft & Cruse, 2004: 160). From the viewpoint of this approach, the
problem with meronymy originates from the fact that the part- whole relation does
not hold between construed classes of elements, but between specific individuals
belonging to those classes. Furthermore, in the case of meronymy, unlike hyponymy,
a part-whole relation between two entities is itself a construal, subject to a range of
conventional and contextual constraints.

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It seems that every part has its own story, and all the above-mentioned notions
are not false as each notion is valid to some extents. It can be said that meronymy is
the lexical relation between a lexical item denoting a part and that denoting the
corresponding whole. This will be considered as the working definition for this study.
Meronymy reflects the result of division of analysis of an entry into parts or
components in that the relation between the whole and its component is called
Meronomic relation.
2. Characteristics of meronymy
2.1. The constant principle in the semantic relation of Meronymy
In order to construct a well-built meronymy, the principle of type consistency
of Croft & Cruse (2004: 153) should be counted: “The relevant notion of type is
difficult to pin down here. One aspect is usually called ontological type. There’s no
agreement on a basic ontology, but the sort of thing referred to by Jakendoff (1983),
namely, THING, STATE, PROCESS, EVENT, TIME, PLACE, and so on seems
relevant to parts”. It means that the parts of a period of time should themselves be
periods of time; the parts of an event should be sub-events. Meronymy is the
semantic relation existing between a lexical item denoting a part and an item denoting
the corresponding whole. Therefore, the relationship among elements in Meronym is
also in the same general type. If one element in a meronymy denotes a cohesive
physical object, then the other items in the set must too. For instance, “weight” of a
“body” does not figure among its parts. In addition, if one item refers to geographical
area, all the others must do (hence Westminster Abbey is not a part of London); if one
item is abstract noun, the others must be as well (e.g. “high” is impossible to be a part
of “body”)
The rule of type consistency justifies the existence of numerous limited
meronomies, instead of a single one, with universe as its origin and at the lower
bounds some sort of subatomic particle or particles. This phenomenon is also linked
to boundary demarcation of ultimate wholes & part.

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The division of parts into segmental and systemic is another dimension of
consistency illustrated by Croft & Cruse (2004:154). If a whole is divided into
separable, spatially or perceptually cohesive parts, these will be referred to as
segmental parts. In such a division, items of a lexical hierarchy correspond to real-life
objects which stand in a relation of segmental parts to the whole. An alternative
approach is a division into systemic parts, which “have a greater functional unity, a
greater consistency of internal constitution, but they are spatially inter-penetrating”
(Cruse, 1986). Divisions of this kind are not so easily perceptually accessible, but
they are as valid as the former type. Every good taxonomic hierarchy must keep a
constant principle of hierarchy and avoid mixing them. Thus a plant must be either
divided into segmental parts, such as root, stem, leaves (further divisible into a leaf
stalk or petiole, and a blade or lamina), flower, etc., or into systemic parts, such as the
vascular tissue (mainly xylem and phloem), stele or vascular cylinder, cortex, stem
cambium, epidermis, endodermis, photosynthetic tissue, and other specialized
cellular systems.
2.2. Properties of Meronymy
Cruse stated in his book (2000) that there are four properties of Meronymy
Necessity: some parts are necessary for the wholes and some are optional:
e.g. an engine is a necessary part of a car; a moustache is an optional part of a male’s
face.
Integrality: some parts are more integral to their wholes than others: e.g.
handle as part of a door & the hand as part of an arm.
Discreteness: some parts are more easily divided from their sister parts than
others: e.g. an engine can be easily taken from a car. Other parts, such as the tip of
the tongue, the lobe of the ear are less clearly separated. A more discrete a part is,
the more prototypical the meronyms is.
Motivation: parts have an identifiable function of their own with respect to
their wholes: e.g. the handle is for grasping and opening and closing the door, the

wheels are for the car to move smoothly, etc.

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3. Types
Meronymy also divided into different kinds. Cruse (1986) distinguished two
subtypes of Meronymy: necessary Meronyms (ear-body) and optional Meronyms
(beard-face) to show some object were the direct parts of the whole, while some were
attached parts. Additionally, Chaffin & Herrmann (1987) explored the relation
elements and suggested six types of Meronymy. Winston et al. (1987) considered the
function, homeomeria and separability to interpret the types of meronymy relation,
which is shown in the following table.
Table 1: Six types of meronymic relation with relation elements

Relation
Component/
Integral Object
Member/
Collection
Portion/Mass

Stuff/ object

Feature/Activity

Place/ area

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Note: Functional (+)/ Nonfunctional (-): Parts are/are not in a specific
spatial/temporal position with respect to each other which supports their functional
role with respect to the whole.
Homeomerous (+)/ Nonhomeomerous (-): Parts are similar/dissimilar to each other
and to the whole to which they belong.
Separable (+)/ Inseparable (-): Parts can/cannot be physically disconnected, in
principle, from the whole to which they are connected.
The differences among the six types of meronymic relations are indicated by
the values of three relation elements that summarize characteristic properties of the
relations. Meronymic relations differ in three main ways: whether the relation of part
to the whole is functional or not, whether the parts are homeomerous or not, and
whether the part and whole are separable or not. Functional parts are restricted, by
their function, in their spatial or temporal location.
3.1. Component – integral
This is the relation between the components and the objects they belong to.
The components are in a specific spatial/temporal position with respect to each other
which supports their functional role with respect to the whole. However, they are
dissimilar to each other and to the whole to which they belong and cannot be
physically disconnected, in principle, from the whole to which they are connected.
For example:
The brake is a part of a car.
The cupboard is a part of the kitchen.
The roof is a part of a house
Integral objects always display some types of certain organizations or
structures. Their components are also patterned and often have particular structural
and functional connection with one another and to the wholes that they belong to. The
specific characteristics of integral wholes are defined by these structural relationships
and it is not able to randomly arrange their components- components

9


but must put them into a certain patterned organization within the wholes which they
comprise.
3.2. Member – collection
Member- collection type corresponds the membership in a collection.
Members are parts that do not play any functional part with regard to their whole, but
they cannot be splitted from collection.
A tree is part of forest. A
juror is part of a jury. This
ship is part of a fleet.
Membership in a collection is not similar to componenthood because it does
not require a specific function or structural arrangement of member performance in
relation to each other and to their whole.
Collection whose members are determined by social connection are generally
referred as “group”. This relationship is often expressed by the phrase “a/the member
of”. For example:
Vietnam is the member of Asian.
China is a member of WTO.
3.3. Portion- Mass
Portion-Mass is a type of meronymy which is both homeomerous and
seperable. Among extensive wholes, that is, physical objects, it can distinguish
“portion” from “components of objects and members of collections. Although these
three tyes are all separable, unlike components and members, portions of mass is
“homeomerous”. It means that they have parts which are similar to each other and to
the whole which they belong to while components and members can be different
from each other and dissimilar to the wholes which they comprise. For example,
This slice is a part of the pie
A yard is a part of a mile.

He gave me a part of his orange.

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As can be seen from the example, every portion is the orange is “orange” and
is the same as each other part and to the whole orange while a window is also a part
of the house, however, it is not similar to the other components of the house and of
course, not like the house.
Because the portions of masses are flexible, means of standard measures can
be used to divided and apportion masses such as inches, ounces, gallons, hours and so
on. As Behr et al., 1986 note, the portion- mass relation thus forms the basis for the
arithmetic operation of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
3.4. Stuff- Object
Stuff- Object is the only type of meronymic relation that has none of three
relation elements that summarize characteristic properties of relation. Stuffs are not
part by virtue of any functional contribution to the whole, the parts are not
homeomerous and the part and the whole are not separable. This type is most often
expressed using the “is partly” frame, as in;
The bike is partly steel.
The table is partly wood.
The cake is partly eggs.
This frame is expresses the idea that a particular type of substance constitutes
a portion of the total stuff of which something is made. When something is made of a
single stuff, “is partly” cannot be used. Instead, the relation must be expressed by
“made of” as in;
The lens is made of glass.
The lens is partly glass
The stuff- object type is different from the component- object type based on
the popular argument standard. The component is the answer for the question “What

are its parts?” while the stuff is used to answer the question “What is it made of?”.
However, in some cases, it is not easy to distinguish stuffs from components,
especially when the object is a homogeneous mixture, for example, salad. Is lettuce a
component or one of the stuffs of the salad? The values of three-relation element

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can be helpful in these cases. The components can be physically separated from an
object without altering its identity, whereas the stuff of which a thing is made can not
because the lettuce is possible to be removed from a salad, it is not a stuff, it is a
component.
3.5. Feature- Activity
Features are in a special spatial/ temporal position with respect to each other
that supports their functional role with respect to the activity. However, features are
dissimilar to each other and to the whole activity to which they belong to and features
cannot be physically disconnected, in principle, from the whole to which they are
connected.
The existence of this fifth type of meronymic relation is indicated by the use
of “part” to designate the features or phrases of activities and processes, for example;
Paying is part of shopping
Test is part of studying.
Dating is part of adolescence.
Cruse( 1986: 160- 165) determines that unlike the types of meronymy discussed thus
far, sentences of the type “X has Y” and similar locutions can not be used to reveal
the feature- activity relation, such as;
Shopping has paying
Studying has test
Adolescence has dating
3.6. Place- Area

The last type of meronymy is the relation between areas and special places and
locations within them, for instance;
Hanoi is a part of Vietnam.
An oasis is a part of a desert.
The baseline is part of a tennis court.
Parts in this type are not in a special spatial/ temporal position with respect to
each other that supports their functional role with respect to the whole like the

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member of collection. In addition, similar to the portion- mass relation, the area-place
relation is homogeneous; every place within an area is relatively similar to every
other and to the whole area. Nevertheless, different from portions of masses, places
cannot be set apart from the areas of which they are a part.
In general, each relationship differs from the other basic types of meronymy,
though it does give one kind of answer to the question “What are its parts?” because
of the nature of the variation of the connection between a whole and its parts. The
variation is captured by the three elements that were used in Table 1 to summarize the
differences between the types of meronymy. The connection of part to whole differs
depending on whether the part is functional, homogeneous, and separable. In this
paper, the Winston classification is used as a criterion for building the training corpus
to provide a wide coverage of such subtypes of part-whole relations.
II. CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 1.
Language acquisition
Language learning is one of the most fascinating aspects of human
development, hence undoubtedly attracts much scientific attention. Following are
three central theoretical positions: the behaviorist, the innatist, and the interactionist
views on language acquisition.
The behaviorist position: Behaviorists believes that children learn language

through imitation and habit formation. According to them, the quality and quantity of
the Language input to which the child is exposed have an influence on the child’s
language development processes which include imitation and practice. This view
offers a partial understanding of how children learn simple aspects of language.
However, the behaviorists failed to give a rational explanation for the more complex
grammatical structures.
The innatist position: Noam Chomsky views the ability to learn language as an
innate one. He claims “children are biologically programmed for language”.
According to Chomsky, imitation and practice cannot build up language system
successfully because children are often exposed to the language environment filled

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with confusing information or even insufficient language source. Parental corrections
are inconsistent with a focus on meaning. Therefore, he claims that children have an
innate ability called a language acquisition device at first or later on Universal
Grammar to derive the rules of a language system themselves other than their mere
imitation, practice, and reinforcement. Universal Grammar is considered to consist of
a set of principles which are common to all languages. If the children are born with
universal grammar, they just have to learn how the principles work in their mother
tongue and in foreign languages that they are learning (Chomsky 1981). Chomsky’s
ideas are supported by biological studies and the critical period hypothesis which
suggests that the language acquisition in particular and biological functions in general
only works perfectly only when it is timely stimulated in a certain period
Vygotsky’s social development theory: Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Soviet
psychologist, the founder of a theory of human cultural and bio-social development
commonly referred to as cultural-historical psychology, and leader of the Vygotsky
Circle. At the core of Vygotsky’s theory (also known as Cultural-Historical theory) is
the idea that child development is the result of interactions between children and their

social environment. These interactions involve people—parents and teachers,
playmates and schoolmates, brothers and sisters. Vygotsky felt social learning
precedes development. He states, "Every function in the child's cultural development
appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first,
between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological)".
Vygotsky also posited a concept of the Zone of Proximal Development, which
is the distance between a student's ability to perform a task under adult guidance and/
or with peer collaboration and the student's ability solving the problem independently.
According to Vygotsky, learning occurred in this zone.
Three points of view mentioned above have explained a different aspect of
children’s language development in turn: the first one explains the routine aspects,

14


the second deals with the acquisition of complex grammar, and the last one explains
the way how children can relate form and meaning, how they interact, and how they
use language properly.
Of all these points of view, the social development theory has been adopted to
shed light for the study. Unlike other approaches, this emphasizes the role of social
interaction between the developing child and linguistically knowledgeable adults,
reinforcement and feedback in language acquisition. These are the base and the light
for the research when investigating children’s use during communication with each
other. Specifically, it asserts that much of a child's linguistic growth stems from
modeling of and interaction with parents and other adults, who very frequently
provide instructive correction.
2. Teachers’ oral feedback in speaking
2. 1. The definitions of feedback
In the context of teaching and learning languages, there are a large number of
feedback definitions. Littlewood (1981) and Lewis (2002) both equaled feedback

with telling learners about their progress and showing them their errors in order to
guide them to areas for improvement. Different in words but similar in nature, Ur
(1996, p.242) proposed, “Feedback is information that is given to the learner about
his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving this
performance.” It is clearly seen that these two definitions treated this terms under a
broad point of view since they just indicated that learners are the ones to receive
feedback without showing who are the ones to give it. However, in Ferris (1999),
feedback was viewed as “any response a teacher may give his or her students” (cited
in Do, 2009, p.16).
Obviously, the point that all the above-mentioned definitions have in common
is the purpose of providing feedback, i.e. for learner’s improvement. Accordingly,
there are two matters loomed. Firstly, question of quality of feedback comes into
considerable concern. The second thing is the distinction between feedback and
criticism as Robert (2003) proposed in his study: “Feedback should only ever be used

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as a basis for improvement. It should not be mistaken for negative criticism and vice
verse.” (p.12) Supporting Robert (2003)’s idea, Bound (2000) pointed out significant
difference between feedback and criticism. Whereas, “A good feedback is given
without personal judgment or opinion, given based on the facts, always neutral and
objective, constructive and focus on the future”, “criticism is personal, fault finding,
very subjective, usually destructive, involve emotion, and past oriented” (p.7).
In another way, as opposed to feedback that is aimed to give sincere input to
someone in order for him/ her to improve him/ herself, criticism is given for the
negative purpose and in improper way. In the nutshell, feedback provision can be
among peers or between teachers and students; however, feedback concerned in this
study is viewed in the notion of teaching-learning act between teachers and students.
2.2. Types of feedback

So far, the researcher could find various ways of categorizing feedback types.
Firstly, from the viewpoint of Brookhart (1998), feedback falls into four general types
that are shown in this following chart:
Feedback Types

Effective

Use criteriabased phrase to
describe the
strengths and
weaknesses of
students’ work
and get
students to use
the suggested
strategies
independently
on future work

Figure 1: Feedback Types classified by Brookhart (1998)

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Another way of classifying feedback that is shown in the graph below is found
in Crane’s study (2006).
Feedback Types

Simply
inform the

learner the
accuracy of a
response

Figure 2: Feedback Types classified by Crane (2006)
Apart from corrective and evaluate feedback shown clearly above, there are
some other related names shown as the followings.
Positive vs. Negative/ Corrective feedback
As for Mc.Namara (1999) and Anyon (2001), positive feedback shows
students that teachers are interested in what they say and at the same time encourage
them. In contrary, negative one expresses teachers’ displeasure, frustration or
involves some kinds of punishment. Corrective feedback, as it name tells, is used to
correct students’ mistake.
Direct/explicit vs. Indirect/ implicit feedback
In Bitchener et. al (2005), it was stated that direct or explicit feedback means
that teachers identifies an error and provides the correct form, while indirect or
implicit feedback refers to the situation when teachers point out an error without
correct form provision.
Verbal vs. Non-verbal feedback